Rise of the Resistance BOARDING GROUPS Superthread Part 2 *No Ride Spoilers Please* *PLEASE READ POSTS 1-3*

[bethwc101]

I wouldn’t join the DL turnstile line after 7:25am for an 8am opening or 8:15am for a 9am opening. The uncertainty of the DL turnstile wait diminishes DCA early entry IMHO.

I just sent this email to Guest Services. Probably won't do anything, but our group just might cancel our res for GCH as the biggest value is our early entry. But if we are going to try and get a BG on both our days, then what's the point?

"
I am a little concerned about our upcoming stay at the Disneyland Resort. We will be staying on property and have early entry to DCA on two of our days. Because of the Rise of the Resistance boarding group process and long lines to enter Disneyland Park, it appears guests will have to choose between using their early entry at DCA or getting in line for Disneyland to try and get a Rise of the Resistance boarding group.
With a 7am early entry at DCA, with park opening at 8am for Disneyland, the early entry users would need to be in line before 7:30 am as the lines are extending all the way down to DCA gates at times. How do you expect your on site guests to be able to take advantage of their early entry as well as book a boarding group if they will have to leave early entry less than half way through to get in line for Disneyland.
I feel this is not very well thought through and seriously diminishes the value of staying on property. I do not understand why DCA is not a valid scan point to get a boarding group. We have several trips planned for this year and have GCH reservations booked. We are seriously considering changing our reservations to a good neighbor property as the greatest appeal of on property was early entry. I also cannot currently recommend to those planning on attending DLR to stay on property as this seems like a serious oversight for your on site guests.
Do you have any plans to change this process or is this going to be the continued inadvisable plan for the foreseeable future? "

 

[HydroGuy]

Looks like our group will have a decision to make then. Give up magic morning for a potential ROTR BG. Hmm... why have they not added DCA as a usable entrance for getting a BG yet?

Since DCA does not have "magic mornings" I assume you mean "extra magic hour"? DCA does have EMH only for DLR hotel guests.

For anyone who has MM, which is only at DL park, you do not have to sacrifice MM at all. If you have EMH as a hotel guest, then you are right. On days you want to try for ROTR BG, you will need to sacrifice all or most of the DCA EMH. Another strategy would just be to try for ROTR Regular BGs on days with DL park MM/EMH, and on days with DCA EMH satisfy yourself with getting a Backup BG - and thus park hop to DL after it officially opens. Backup BGs last anywhere from 1 minute to 1 hour.

 

[Syndrome]

Sitting in the hub , seems more crowded than yesterday so far . We got a late start , and joined the line about 3 flags deep past the monorail . Lines moved fast even though they were taking pictures . Waiting for the 5 minute to opening “ second rope drop “ to get into our position .
edit - boarding group 25 today !
Also helped some 1st time peeps sitting around our “spot” . They got 56 . They were SO happy for the help !

 

[ironband74]

This makes the elusive "A-Team" sound something like the Ark of the Covenant. Maybe we should hire Indy to go get the "A-Team" back for us and to keep them on our coast!
(Although today's performance would indicate that "B-Team" is movin' on up! Way to go, B guys!)

We don't know that they are using that approach for sure. But the data suggests that we might have used it for a couple weeks.

I posted on the WDW side of the forum, but it got deleted because it was technically off-topic (no shade).

But when I look at the data, this is what I see:



1. Prior to opening on the West Coast, DHS was definitely having some really good days (but also some not so great ones). After West Coast came online, we started seeing a general decline in performance on the East Coast. I think this is due to resources which were previously dedicated to the one coast being shared between the two of them. After our opening weekend there was actually some correlation between the two coasts. Certain dips and peaks seemed to correspond to software updates and changes made either simultaneously or a day apart. We saw this correlation right up until before the Presidents' Day weekend, with both parks taking a dive on 2/13.

2. Starting President's day weekend, we see the trends diverge. DL gets really good for 5 days, while DHS has a poor but upward trend. Then DL takes a dive as DHS continues to improve. Then DL climbs out of its valley just as DHS drops into one. And then the last two days are somewhat mysterious.

3. If the "A-team" hypothesis is true, and we now begin to see trends stabilize, then I would think that the "A-team" approach was a two week exercise which they used to do some learning and training.

4. If the "A-team" hypothesis is true, and we see trends diverge again, then it is possible that they are continuing the exercise. It is also possible that they will do 2-weeks on 2-weeks off (to keep the team from burning out) until they achieve stability.

5. If the hypothesis is false, then these trends were just a fluke or could also be due to "A/B testing" being done to confirm and employ best practice.

Neither park has seen 100 days of operation yet. The attraction is still very young, and I think that overall from an operations standpoint they are making a lot of headway. Spring Break season is upon us and I am curious to see how it goes.

But enough idle chatter. It's almost time for the daily routine.

 

[ironband74]

I just sent this email to Guest Services. Probably won't do anything, but our group just might cancel our res for GCH as the biggest value is our early entry. But if we are going to try and get a BG on both our days, then what's the point?

"
I am a little concerned about our upcoming stay at the Disneyland Resort. We will be staying on property and have early entry to DCA on two of our days. Because of the Rise of the Resistance boarding group process and long lines to enter Disneyland Park, it appears guests will have to choose between using their early entry at DCA or getting in line for Disneyland to try and get a Rise of the Resistance boarding group.
With a 7am early entry at DCA, with park opening at 8am for Disneyland, the early entry users would need to be in line before 7:30 am as the lines are extending all the way down to DCA gates at times. How do you expect your on site guests to be able to take advantage of their early entry as well as book a boarding group if they will have to leave early entry less than half way through to get in line for Disneyland.
I feel this is not very well thought through and seriously diminishes the value of staying on property. I do not understand why DCA is not a valid scan point to get a boarding group. We have several trips planned for this year and have GCH reservations booked. We are seriously considering changing our reservations to a good neighbor property as the greatest appeal of on property was early entry. I also cannot currently recommend to those planning on attending DLR to stay on property as this seems like a serious oversight for your on site guests.
Do you have any plans to change this process or is this going to be the continued inadvisable plan for the foreseeable future? "

If, as was reported today, DL opens their turnstiles at 8:01 for a 9:00 open, it seems that a more efficient use of the time would be to get in line early at DL, scan in, then make a U-turn and head to DCA for EMH. Of course, we never know when they are going to open the turnstiles and start scanning. It would be nice if things were more...predictable.

 

[Bunless]

81!

 

[gerilyne]

Practicing from home for our trip next week; I got the back up message after 25 seconds. Only 5 more practice days till I get to try it for reals.

Also looks like they are boarding group 1-5 already.

 

[matthewthompson87]

Do you have any plans to change this process or is this going to be the continued inadvisable plan for the foreseeable future? "

Great email. I hope they change the process.

Having to enter DL rather than DCA to obtain a boarding group significantly diminishes the value of my planned Grand Californian stay and the Extra Magic Hour amenity.

As a result, our traveling party also decided not to purchase the Park Hopper option on their tickets.

With negative impacts to the guest experience and total spent on tickets... this would seem like an obvious and easy change to increase success of the BG process.

 

[bethwc101]

Since DCA does not have "magic mornings" I assume you mean "extra magic hour"? DCA does have EMH only for DLR hotel guests.

For anyone who has MM, which is only at DL park, you do not have to sacrifice MM at all. If you have EMH as a hotel guest, then you are right. On days you want to try for ROTR BG, you will need to sacrifice all or most of the DCA EMH. Another strategy would just be to try for ROTR Regular BGs on days with DL park MM/EMH, and on days with DCA EMH satisfy yourself with getting a Backup BG - and thus park hop to DL after it officially opens. Backup BGs last anywhere from 1 minute to 1 hour.

I use the two phrases interchangeably. I just know one is for each. And since we only get it because we stay on property I know it's valid for both.

 

[ironband74]

Yeah, I logged in at 30 seconds after and saw a backup message immediately.

Let's see how long the backups last.

 

[ironband74]

Practicing from home for our trip next week; I got the back up message after 25 seconds. Only 5 more practice days till I get to try it for reals.

Also looks like they are boarding group 1-5 already.

That's a really good sign. They were ready to go today!

Edit: Looking at the data, that's the fastest start after opening that we've seen!

 

[IsleofDisney]

Wow already boarding at 9:02 this morning. They're feeling confident today!

 

[bethwc101]

If, as was reported today, DL opens their turnstiles at 8:01 for a 9:00 open, it seems that a more efficient use of the time would be to get in line early at DL, scan in, then make a U-turn and head to DCA for EMH. Of course, we never know when they are going to open the turnstiles and start scanning. It would be nice if things were more...predictable.

That's exactly my frustration. We could plan it out to the T, but because there is no set procedure, it could all go out the window. For those who have ridden ROTR, would you potentially sacrifice a DCA early entry day to get a BG? Is it that good?

 

[ten6mom]

I posted on Wednesday that our crazy 0200 departure (from Phoenix) paid off and we got BG 5 that day. We then got BG 8 the next day and then 57 on Saturday.

Saturday we had 5 tickets linked (up from 2 tickets the prior 2 times) and my app actually did something weird. It was actually our self-proclaimed luddite who got it on her Android phone (but I don't know type or carrier).

THANK YOU ALL to everyone on this thread with their amazing tips and advice! I absolutely cannot wait to do my family trip this summer.

 

[ajdplusthree]

We got BG 33!!

 

[fsjking]

We don't know that they are using that approach for sure. But the data suggests that we might have used it for a couple weeks.

I posted on the WDW side of the forum, but it got deleted because it was technically off-topic (no shade).

But when I look at the data, this is what I see:

View attachment 478230

1. Prior to opening on the West Coast, DHS was definitely having some really good days (but also some not so great ones). After West Coast came online, we started seeing a general decline in performance on the East Coast. I think this is due to resources which were previously dedicated to the one coast being shared between the two of them. After our opening weekend there was actually some correlation between the two coasts. Certain dips and peaks seemed to correspond to software updates and changes made either simultaneously or a day apart. We saw this correlation right up until before the Presidents' Day weekend, with both parks taking a dive on 2/13.

2. Starting President's day weekend, we see the trends diverge. DL gets really good for 5 days, while DHS has a poor but upward trend. Then DL takes a dive as DHS continues to improve. Then DL climbs out of its valley just as DHS drops into one. And then the last two days are somewhat mysterious.

3. If the "A-team" hypothesis is true, and we now begin to see trends stabilize, then I would think that the "A-team" approach was a two week exercise which they used to do some learning and training.

4. If the "A-team" hypothesis is true, and we see trends diverge again, then it is possible that they are continuing the exercise. It is also possible that they will do 2-weeks on 2-weeks off (to keep the team from burning out) until they achieve stability.

5. If the hypothesis is false, then these trends were just a fluke or could also be due to "A/B testing" being done to confirm and employ best practice.

Neither park has seen 100 days of operation yet. The attraction is still very young, and I think that overall from an operations standpoint they are making a lot of headway. Spring Break season is upon us and I am curious to see how it goes.

But enough idle chatter. It's almost time for the daily routine.

I'm more inclined to think this less of an A and B as it is the manufacturers tech staff is only on one site or the other. While they are at one park, they can make changes to code or operations on the fly or override things to get the ride moving again. While the other park has to deal with standard procedures and if anything falls outside those, they have to place a call to see what to do.

Maybe wrong of course, but thats how I look at it.

 

[ironband74]

That's exactly my frustration. We could plan it out to the T, but because there is no set procedure, it could all go out the window. For those who have ridden ROTR, would you potentially sacrifice a DCA early entry day to get a BG? Is it that good?

I have not ridden it. If it were me, I would use my DL days to shoot for low groups, and I would use my DCA days to do DCA Early entry and then pop over maybe 5 minutes before opening and get a backup group. Backups tend to last a while on non early entry days, Fridays excepted. What days are you going to be in the parks?

 

[Canadian Harmony]

I just logged in for practice and apparently I can still get a boarding group?! I'm playing from home. We'll be there next week so I'm getting my trigger finger ready.

 

[ironband74]

I'm more inclined to think this less of an A and B as it is the manufacturers tech staff is only on one site or the other. While they are at one park, they can make changes to code or operations on the fly or override things to get the ride moving again. While the other park has to deal with standard procedures and if anything falls outside those, they have to place a call to see what to do.

Maybe wrong of course, but thats how I look at it.

Same concept, though.

 

[IsleofDisney]

The DL app was behaving different this morning, I like to toggle between Join Boarding Group button on FOM page and the My Status method, practicing both ways. I always do the red/orange JBG button first when I select the FOM button a few seconds after OPO, which was what I did this morning. Then back out and do the My Status steps from FOM page. This time the blue outlined JBG button in My Status steps was greyed out though I was able to get to the last steps of a BG through the direct red/orange JBG.

I never seem to get a You're Now Joining Back Up Groups message while doing the toggling between direct JBG button & My Status>JBG button. I'd have to close the app then reopen to clear the last stored info it seems.